Her Doctor's Christmas Proposal
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Louisa George
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Chapter One
‘ODDS ON IT’LL be the Pattersons. She was telling me the other day that she missed out on winning it a couple of years ago, so she’s going to cross her legs until the twenty-fifth. No hot curries, or hot baths and definitely no hot sex for her.’
You and me both, girlfriend. Obstetrician Isabel Delamere tried to remember the last time she’d had anything like hot sex and came up with a blank. It was all by design, of course...working in a maternity unit was enough reminder of what hot sex could lead to—that and her own experiences. But every now and then she wondered...what the hell was she missing out on?
Plus, how could she possibly be lonely when she spent all of her waking hours surrounded by colleagues, clients and lots and lots of wriggling, screaming, gorgeous babies?
Sighing, she wrote Patterson down on the First Baby of Christmas sweepstake form and added her five-pound note to the pot. ‘If mum has her way there’s no way that baby’s coming until Christmas Day. She’s set her heart on the hamper, and between you and me they don’t have a lot of money. I think she needs it.’
‘I admire your optimism...’ Bonnie Reid, one of Isabel’s favourite midwives—and new friend—at the Cambridge Royal Maternity Unit, added her contribution of a large box of chocolates and a bumper pack of newborn nappies to the crate of donations that threatened to overshadow the huge department Christmas tree and wooden Nativity scene. With a heavy bias on baby items, some gorgeous hand-knitted booties and shawls, and heaps of food staples, whoever won would be set up for the next year. ‘But when I saw her yesterday that baby was fully engaged and she was having pretty regular Braxton Hicks contractions, so my bet is that baby Patterson will make a show well before Christmas Day.’ Bonnie stepped back and surveyed the decorations, her lilting Scottish accent infused with wistfulness. ‘Oh, I do love Christmas.’
Me too. Isabel dug deep and found a smile. Well, in reality, she loved being with her sister at Christmas; they shared a very special bond. This last year here in the UK had been the longest they’d spent apart, and the prospect of Isla doing all the traditional celebrations without her bit deep. Especially...she sighed to herself...especially when Christmas had always been so full of memories.
Isabel slammed back the sadness and tried to immerse herself in the here and now rather than thinking of her sister back in Melbourne on the other side of the world, all ripe and ready to have her first baby. She wondered whether the Melbourne Maternity Unit was taking similar bets. Maybe Isla would win the Aussie sweepstake? Now that would give the rest of the department something to giggle about: the head midwife winning with a Christmas Day baby! ‘So, go on, then, who will it be?’
‘Who will what be?’ A deep male voice, redolent with her beloved Aussie tones. The sound of home.
The sound of heartbreak.
Isabel inhaled sharply.
Sean.
And even if the man had been mute she’d have known he was behind her simply because of the full-on reaction her body had any time he was in the vicinity. Every tiny hair stood to attention. Her heart rate escalated. Palms became sweaty. Seventeen years on and she’d managed to deal with it...when she didn’t have to face him every day. She’d almost erased him from her heart.
Almost. She’d come to the other side of the world to forget him. And she’d managed quite well for close to nine months until he’d turned up, out of the blue, and those feelings had come tumbling back. The memories...and his questions... Questions she couldn’t bear to answer.
Somewhere a phone rang. Somewhere voices, raised and harried, called to her. ‘Dr Delamere. Please. There’s been an accident...’
Oh, God. She was shaken from her reverie but her heart rate stayed too high for comfort. ‘Isla?’
‘Isla? No,’ Bonnie called over from the nurses’ station. ‘Susan Patterson. Motor vehicle accident. They’re bringing her in to ER. Heavy vaginal bleeding. Mum shocked. Foetal distress. ETA five minutes.’
‘What? No! We were just talking about her.’ Without even looking at Sean, Isabel jumped straight into doctor mode. ‘Right, Bonnie, sounds like a possible abruption. Get Theatre on alert. I’ll meet the ambulance down in the ER.’
‘I’m coming with you.’ Sean was heading towards the door.
Only when hell freezes over. ‘No. Sean, absolutely not.’
Silence.
She realised that all the eyes of the staff were on her. No one knew about their history, and for as long as there was breath in her body no one was going to. ‘I mean...thank you very much for your offer, Dr Anderson, but I’ll be fine.’
He shrugged, following her into the corridor, into more quiet. ‘I’m in a lull here. Everyone’s discharged or doing well, I don’t have a clinic until two o’clock. Are you really saying you couldn’t use an extra pair of hands? I have done this before, you know.’
‘Yes, I know.’ She also knew what a talented and empathetic obstetrician he was, she just didn’t relish the prospect of spending any time with him. But she had to give this mum everything she had and an extra pair of confident hands would definitely help. ‘Okay. But this is my case, my theatre, my rules.’
‘Of course. If I remember rightly, it was always your rules, Isabel. Right down to the bitter end. In fact, I don’t remember having any say in that at all.’ He gave a wry lift of his eyebrow as they hurried towards the emergency room. ‘This one time I’ll abide by them. But once we’re out of there then...’
She stopped short. ‘Then, what?’
‘Then I change the rules to suit me.’
She shrugged, hoping upon hope that he couldn’t see through her recalcitrant façade to the shaking, smitten teenager she still felt like when she was around him. ‘Do what you want. It won’t affect me. At all.’ Liar. It seemed as if everything he did affected her. Just being here. Breathing. In Cambridge. Goddamn him.
Isabel threw him a look that she hoped told him where exactly to shove his rules, and strode straight in to Resus. She would deal with Sean Anderson...later...never, if she had her way. ‘Now, Susan? Crikey, love, what on earth has been happening?’ She took hold of her patient’s hand.
Mrs Patterson was lying on a trolley, tears streaming down her cheeks. Pale. Terrified. Her voice was barely audible through the oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. ‘Thank God you’re here, Isabel. I’m so scared. I don’t want to lose this baby. Please. Do something.’
‘I will. I just need some details then we’ll make some decisions. And we’ll be quick, I promise.’ She’d have to be. If it was a placental abruption, as she suspected, both mum and bub were at serious risk. Outcomes weren’t always positive. And well she knew. Too well. Isabel examined Susan’s belly for the baby’s position and well-being. Then she tightened an electro foetal monitor belt over the baby bump. ‘Has anyone called Tony?’
‘I did.’ Jenny, the paramedic, filled her in on further details. ‘He’s on his way. Grandma’s looking after the toddler. They were in the car at the time of impact. Hit from behind. Susan felt a tight pull in her belly. Possibly from an ill-fitting seat belt, but there’s no visible marking or bruising on the abdomen. I have normal saline through a wide-bore IV in situ. Moderate vaginal bleeding. Blood pressure ninety over fifty and dropping. Baby’s heart rate jittery and at times...’ She pointed to her notes and let Isabel read. The baby’s heart rate was dipping, a sign of foetal distress. Mum was clearly shocked. Judging by the blood staining her clothes the baby needed to be out. Now.
‘Okay. Thanks.’ Isabel turned to the ER nurse that had appeared. ‘I need you to cross-match four units of packed cells. I need clotting times, usual bloods and that portable ultrasound over here as quick as you can.’
Susan’s hand squeezed in Isabel’s. ‘But I wanted... I wanted to hang on...two more weeks....’
‘I know, but these things happen and we just have to deal with them as best we can.’ Isabel gave Susan a quick smile, positioned the ultrasound machine in front of her, squeezed jelly onto the probe and placed it over Susan’s tummy. ‘I’m just going to take a quick look.’ Baby was okay—distressed, but alive. Isabel exhaled deeply. Thank God.
She looked over at Sean and saw his reassuring smile. She gave him a small one back. They both knew that at least some of the immediate anxiety was over.
But the placenta was, indeed, partially separated. The baby was at serious risk and mum’s blood loss was not stopping. Despite the desperate urgency Isabel needed to be calm so as not to frighten mum too much. ‘Okay, Susan, we do have a problem here, but—’
‘Oh, my God. I knew it...’
‘Sweetheart, we’ll do our best. It’ll be okay.’ Isabel prayed silently that it would. ‘Your placenta is failing, I think the car impact may have given it a nasty jolt or tear and there’s a real risk to the baby if we don’t do something soon. As you know the placenta is what keeps baby alive, so we have to take you to the operating theatre and do a Caesarean section. I need your consent—’
‘Where’s Susan? Susan? Where’s Susan?’ A burly-looking stocky man covered in dust pushed his way in, steel-capped boots leaving grubby imprints across the floor. ‘What the hell’s happening?’
Isabel scanned the room for Sean. But he was there already, his hand on Tony’s forearm, gently slowing him down. ‘Are you Tony? Here, let me bring you over. It’s a lot to take in, I know, mate. There’s a few tubes and lines and she looks a little pale. But she’s good.’
‘She is not good. Look at her.’ The room filled with the smell of beer and a voice that was rough round the edges, and getting louder. ‘Is that...? Is that blood? What’s happened? What about my boy? The baby! Susan! Are you all right?’ Then his tone turned darker, he shoved out of Sean’s grip and marched up to Isabel. In her face. Angry and foul-mouthed. ‘You. Do something. Why are you just standing there? Do something, damn it.’
Isabel’s hand began to shake. But she would not let him intimidate her. ‘I’m doing the best I can. We all are. Now, please—’
‘No need for that, mate. Come away.’ Sean’s voice was calm but firm. At six foot one he was by far the bigger man. Broader too. And while Tony was rough and menacing, Sean was authoritative. There was no aggression, but a quietly commanded respect and attention. ‘We’re going to take her to Theatre right now, but first we need to know what we’re dealing with. Yes? Have a few words with Susan, but then we need to get moving. I’ll show you where you can wait.’
‘Get your hands off me.’ Tony pushed his way to the trolley. ‘Susie.’
‘I’ll be fine, Tony. Just do as he says.’ Susan started to shake. ‘I love you.’
‘If they don’t—’
Sean stepped forward. ‘As I said. Come with me. Now. Let’s have a quiet word. Outside.’ He bustled Tony out of the room.
‘He’s not a bad man.’ Isabel’s patient’s voice was fading. Alarms began to blare.
‘I know, I know, he’s scared, is all.’ Thank God Sean was able to contain him because the last thing Isabel needed was a drunk father getting in the way of saving a mother and baby. ‘Now we need to get you sorted, quickly.’ Isabel nodded to the porter. ‘Let’s go.’
She all but ran to the OR, scrubbed up and was in the operating theatre in record time. Sean, somehow, was there before her. ‘So we have a crash C-section scenario. Your call, Izzy. Whatever happens, I’ve got your back.’
‘Thank you.’ And she meant it. Well drilled in dealing with emergencies, she felt competent and confident, but having someone there she knew she could rely on gave her a lift. Even if that lift involved her heart as well as her head.
Within minutes she’d tugged out a live baby boy. Floppy. Apgar of six. But, with oxygen and a little rub, the Apgar score increased to ten. As occurred with every delivery Isabel felt a familiar sting of sadness, and hope. But she didn’t have time for any kind of sentimentality. One life saved wouldn’t be enough for her. Placental abruption was harrowing and scary for the mother but it was high risk too. That amount of blood loss, coupled with the potential for complications, meant they were perilously close to losing her.
‘Blood pressure’s dropping...’ The anaesthetist gave them a warning frown.
‘Hang on in there... I just need to find the tear.’ Isabel breathed a sigh of relief as she reached the placenta and started to remove it. ‘Attagirl.’
Within an hour they’d managed to save Susan’s life too, although she had hung close to the edge. Too close.
And now...well, now that dad was with baby, her patient was in recovery and the rest of the staff had scarpered, Isabel was alone. Alone, that was, with the one person she never wanted to be alone with again. Rather than look at him she stared at the words she was writing. ‘Well, Sean, I don’t want to keep you while I finish writing up these notes. Thanks, you were a great help. Things could have turned nasty with Tony.’
‘He just needed me to explain a few things. Like how to behave in an emergency department. But I get it. The bloke was worried. I would have been too if I was losing my wife and my baby.’
Guilt crawled down her spine. How would he have been? At seventeen? Quick-mouthed and aggressive? Or the self-assured, confident man he was now? She stole a quick glance in his direction. ‘You wouldn’t have acted like that. So thanks for dealing with him. And for your help in here.’
‘It wasn’t just me. We almost lost them both, but your quick thinking and nifty work saved both their lives. Well done.’ He threw his face mask into the bin, snapped his gloves off and faced her. ‘You look exhausted.’
‘Gee, thanks. I’m fine.’ She didn’t feel fine. Her legs were like jelly and her stupid heart was still pounding with its fight-or-flight response. She looked away from the notes and towards the door. Flight. Good idea. Easier to write them up in the safety of her office, which was a Sean-free zone. Snapping the folder closed, she looked up at him. ‘Actually, I’ve got to go.’
‘Wait, please.’
She stepped towards the door and tried hard to look natural instead of panicked. ‘No. I have a million things to do.’
‘They can wait.’ His tone was urgent, determined. He was striding towards the exit now too.
‘No. They can’t.’
‘Isabel. Stop avoiding me, goddamn it!’
He was going to ask.
He was going to ask and she was going to lie. Because lying had been the only way to forge enough distance between her and the one thing she had promised herself she could never do again: feel something.
She calculated that it would take precisely five seconds to get out of the chilly delivery room and away from his piercing blue-eyed gaze. For the last two months she’d managed to steer clear from any direct one-to-ones with him, shielding herself with colleagues or friends. But now, the things unsaid between them for almost seventeen years weighed heavily in the silence.
He was going to ask and she was going to lie. Again.
The lies were exhausting. Running was exhausting. Just as getting over Sean and that traumatic time had been. She didn’t want to have to face that again. Face him again.
His scent filled the room. Sunshine. Spice. His heat, so familiar and yet not so.
Seventeen years.
God, how he’d matured into the sophisticated, beautiful man he was destined to be. But wanting answers to questions that would break her heart all over again...and his.
She made direct eye contact with the door handle and started to move towards it again.
‘Izzy?’
She would not turn round. Would. Not. ‘Don’t call me that here. It’s Isabel or Dr Delamere.’
‘Hello? It’s not as if anyone can hear. There’s only you and me in here. It’s so empty there’s an echo.’
‘I can hear.’ And I don’t want to be reminded. Although she was, every day. Every single day. Every mother, every baby. Every birth. Every stillborn. Every death.
She made it to the door. The handle was cold and smooth. Sculpted steel, just like the way she’d fashioned her heart and her backbone. Beyond the clouded glass she could make out a bustling corridor of co-workers and clients. Safety. She squeezed the handle downwards and a whoosh of air breathed over her. ‘I’m sorry, Dr Anderson, I have a ward round to get to. I’m already late. Like I said, thanks for your help back there.’
‘Any time. You know that.’ His hand covered hers and a shot of electricity jolted through her. He was warm. And solid. And here; of all the maternity units he could have chosen... This time it wasn’t a coincidence. His voice was thick and deep and reached into her soul. ‘I just want one minute, Isabel. That’s all. One.’
One minute. One lifetime. It would never be enough to bridge that time gap. Certainly not if she ever told him the answer to his question.
‘No, Sean, please don’t ask me again.’ She jabbed her foot into the doorway and pulled the door further open.
Then she made fatal error number one. She turned her head and looked up at him.
His chestnut hair was tousled from removing his surgical cap, sticking up in parts, flattened in others. Someone needed to sink their fingers in and fluff it. So not her job. Not when she was too busy trying not to look at those searching eyes. That sculptured jawline. The mouth that had given her so much pleasure almost a year ago, with one stupid, ill-thought-out stolen kiss, and...a lifetime ago. A boy turned into a man. A girl become a woman, although in truth that had happened in one night all those years ago.
Onwards went her gaze, re-familiarising herself with lines and grooves, and learning new ones. Wide solid shoulders, the only tanned guy in a fifty-mile radius, God bless the sparse Aussie ozone layer. Toned arms that clearly did more working out than lifting three-kilogram newborns.
His voice was close to her ear. ‘Izzy, if it was over between us... If everything was completely finished, why the hell did you kiss me?’
Good question. Damn good question. She’d been brooding over the answer to that particular issue for the better part of the last year, ever since he’d crushed her against him in a delivery suite very similar to this one, but half a world away. It had been a feral response to a need she hadn’t ever known before. A shock, seeing him again after so long, turning up at the Melbourne hospital where she’d worked. He’d been as surprised as she had, she was sure.
Then he’d kissed her. A snatched frenzied embrace that had told her his feelings for her had been rekindled after such a long time apart. And, oh, how she’d responded. Because, in all honesty, her feelings for him had never really waned.
Heat prickled through her at the mere memory. Heat and guilt. But they had to put it behind them and move forward. ‘Really, Sean? Do you chase most of the women you kiss across the world? It must cost an awful lot in airfares. Still, I guess you must do well on the loyalty schemes. What do you have now, elite platinum status? Does that entitle you to fly the damn planes as well?’
His smile was slow to come, but when it did it was devastating. ‘Most women aren’t Isabel Delamere. And none of them kiss like you do.’
‘I’m busy.’
‘You’re avoiding the issue.’
She held his too blue, too intense gaze. She could do this. Distract him with other issues, deflect the real one. Get him off her back once and for all. She was going away tomorrow for a few days. Hopefully everything would have blown over by the time she got back. Like hell it would. She could pretend that it had. She just needed some space from him. ‘So let me get this straight. You turn up out of the blue at the same place I’m working in Melbourne—’
‘Pure coincidence. I was as shocked as you. Pleasantly, though. Unlike your reaction.’ The pressure of his thumb against the back of her hand increased a little, like a stroke, a caress.
She did not want him to caress her.
Actually she did. But that would have been fatal error number two. ‘Then after I leave there you turn up here. Also out of the blue? I don’t think so.’
‘Aww, you missed a whole lot out...where I didn’t see you or have any contact with you for many, many years. As far as I was concerned you were the one that got away. But also the one I got over.’ At her glare he shrugged shoulders that were broader, stronger than she remembered. ‘I put you out of my mind and did exactly what I had planned to do with my life and became a damned fine obstetrician. Then one day I turn up at my cushy new locum job at Melbourne Maternity Unit and bump into my old...flame. I never dreamt for a minute you’d be there after hearing you’d studied medicine in Sydney. I assumed you’d moved on. Like I had. But then, Delamere blood runs thick with the Yarra so I should have realized you’d be there in the bosom of your...delightful family.’ He gave a sarcastic smile. Sean had never got on with her hugely successful neurosurgeon daddy and socialite mother who ran with the It crowd in Melbourne. ‘Well, in that sumptuous penthouse apartment anyway. Cut to the chase—the first chance you get: wham, bam. You kiss me.’
‘What?’ She dragged her hand from under his and jabbed a finger at him. ‘You kissed me first. It took me by surprise—it didn’t mean anything.’
‘No one kisses like that and doesn’t mean it.’
He’d pulled her to him and she’d felt the hard outline of his body, had a crazy melting of her mind and she’d wanted to kiss him right back. Hard. Hot. And it had been the most stupid thing she’d done in a long time. Not least because it had reignited an ache she’d purged from her system. She’d purged him from her system. ‘And now you’re here to what? Taunt me? Tell me, Sean, why are you here?’
‘Ask your sister.’
‘Isla? Why? And how can I?’ There was no way Isla would ever have told Sean what had happened. She’d promised to keep that secret for ever and Isabel trusted her implicitly. Even though over the years she had caught Isla looking at her with a sad, pitiful expression. And sure, Isabel knew she’d been badly scarred by her experiences, they both had, but she was over it. She was. She’d moved on. ‘Isla is back home in Australia and I’m here. I’m hardly going to phone a heavily pregnant woman in the middle of the night just to ask why an old boyfriend is in town, am I? What did she say?’
‘It was more what she didn’t say that set alarm bells ringing. I asked her outright why you had suddenly gone so cold on our relationship, she said she couldn’t tell me but that I should ask you myself. Between her garbled answers and your sizzling kiss, I’m guessing that there’s a lot more to this than you’re letting on. Something important. Something so big that you’re both running scared. My brain’s working overtime and I’m baffled. So tell me the truth, Isabel. Tell me the truth, then I’ll go. I’ll leave. Out of your life.’
Which would be a blessing and a curse. She was so conflicted she didn’t know if she never wanted to set eyes on him again or...wake up every morning in his arms. But if he ever found out why they’d split up option two would never, ever happen. He’d make sure of it. ‘It doesn’t matter any more, Sean. It was such a long time ago.’
‘It matters to me. It clearly still matters to Isla, so I’m sure it matters to you.’ He leaned closer and her senses slammed into overdrive. Memories, dark, painful memories, rampaged through her brain. Her body felt as if it were reliving the whole tragedy again. Her heart rate jittered into a stupid over-compensatory tachycardia, and she squeezed the door handle.
It was all too much.
In her scrubs pocket her phone vibrated and chimed ‘Charge of The Light Brigade’. She grabbed it, grateful of the reprieve. The labour ward. ‘Look, seriously, I’ve got to run.’
‘Doing what you do best.’ He flicked his thumb up the corridor, his voice raised. ‘Go on, Izzy. Go ahead and run. But remember this—you walked away with no explanation, you just cut me adrift. Whatever happened back then wasn’t just about you. And while I’ve thought about it over the years it’s hardly kept me awake at night, until Isla hinted at some momentous mystery that she’s sworn not to talk about, and if it involves me then I deserve to know why.’
Isabel glanced at the phone display, then up the corridor, where she saw a few heads popping out from rooms, then darting back in again.
She looked back at Sean. She thought about the dads in the delivery suites, so proud, so emotional, so raw. How they wept when holding their newborns. She thought about Tony, who’d have fought tooth and nail for his son, even if it had riled every member of hospital staff. She thought about the babies born sleeping and the need for both parents to know so much, to be involved. They cared. They loved. They broke. They grieved. Both of them, not just the mums.
So damn right Sean deserved to know. She’d hidden this information for so long, and yet he had every right to know what had happened. And once he knew then surely he’d leave? If not because it was so desperately sad, but because she had kept this from him. He’d hate her.
But the relief would be final. She’d be free from the guilt of not telling him. Just never, never of the hurt.
She opened her mouth to say the words, but her courage failed. ‘Please, just forget it. Put it behind you. Forget I ever existed. Forget it all.’
‘Really? When I see you every day? Forget this?’ He stepped closer, pinning her against the doorway, and for a moment she thought—hoped—he was going to kiss her again. His mouth was so close, his scent overpowering her. And the old feelings, the want, the desire came tumbling back. They had never had problems with the attraction; it had been all-consuming, feral, intense even then. It was the truth that she’d struggled with. Laying bare how she felt, because she was a Delamere girl after all, and she wasn’t allowed to show her emotions. Ever. She had standards, expectations to fulfil. And dating Sean Anderson hadn’t been one of them. Certainly carrying his child never was.
His breath whispered over the nape of her neck. Hot. Hungry. Sending shivers of need spiralling down her back. He was so close. Too close. Not close enough. ‘What’s the matter, Izzy? Having trouble forgetting that I exist?’
And what was the use in wanting him now? One whiff of the truth and he’d be gone.
But, it was time to tell him anyway.
‘Okay. Okay.’ She shoved him back, gave herself some air. She made sure she had full eye contact with him, looked into those ocean-blue eyes. She was struggling with her own emotions, trying to keep her voice steady and level, but failing; she could hear it rise. ‘We had to finish, Sean. I didn’t know what to do. I was sixteen and frightened and I panicked. I had to cut you out of my life once and for all. A clean break for my own sanity if not for anything else.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I was pregnant.’
He staggered back a step. Two. ‘What?’
‘Yes, Sean. With your baby.’
